Flamingled

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Thursday, June 21, 2018

A cheerful heart is good medicine,
    but a broken spirit saps a person’s strength.  Proverbs 17:22^(NLT)

My daughter Jen and I have a war (of sorts) going on.  It’s been raging for some years now.  It has to do with flamingos.  More than a decade ago I found out that one of the reasons she was glad to move from Florida to North Carolina is flamingos…she despises the little plastic pink ones people put in every Florida front yard.  I made the mistake of agreeing that I wouldn’t ever put one in my yard (but then I don’t like any statues or fake deer, flamingos or Santa blow-up decorations).  On my next birthday, that ruthless daughter gave me a plastic flamingo the size of Chicago.  I retaliated one Sunday morning after they left for church by lining her driveway with about two dozen of the despicable birds. 

I thought that had been the A-Bomb of the bird war, but a few years later I got a present that was wrapped in flamingo paper; inside was two strings of Christmas lights…each light a little pink plastic birdy-thorn in my saddle.  And so, a year ago for her May birthday she got no flamingos…just a regular present.  That was me setting the trap.  Shortly after, with my unsuspecting daughter certain she’d won the war with the Christmas-light flaminglow fiasco, I gave her a coffee mug, complete with a flamingo on the inside…the one you couldn’t see if the mug was full of coffee, but would be staring at you with a big pink eye as you drained the cup.  Ha!  Jen said thanks by getting me a desk paper weight from their Florida vacation….flamingos on a Florida island!

And then there was Father’s Day last week.  We had offered to bring the grilled sausages for the family gathering. 

When we arrived at Jen’s house after church, sausages and buns in hand, we were invited to the kitchen counter buffet, complete with flamingo plates, cups with flamingo-topped swizzle sticks, napkins that invited Let’s Flamingle, and a special pool floatee-thing for my iced tea…a pink flamingo floatee!  The day was a flaming, flamingo, festival!  I told her I had three words for her:  I GIVE UP! 

Now, it may sound an awful lot like the flamingo war is absolutely the worst example of a cheerful heart medicine.  But that’s exactly what it has been like for me (and I expect for Jen too).  I’m not sure I’ve laughed harder, nor been more joyfully-surprised at the resourceful thoughtfulness it takes to go one-up in this pink bird-slinging contest.

I’m wondering how to get a real flamingo into a bathing suit and have it sit on Jen’s porch writing its memoirs on an iPad.  I wonder…

For You Today

Well, it doesn’t have to be flamingos, exactly…but what connects you with someone in your life that takes a little thought, trouble, and going out of the way to make their day?  If you don’t have that, may I recommend a pink, floatee-thing for their iced tea?  I can let you have one real cheap.

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day. 

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[1] Title Image:  Courtesy of Pixabay.com